Eyridice
by WickedWitchOfEastEurope
Summary: The story of Orpheus and Eyridice from a new (twisted, perhaps) angle. I am posting this with the hope of getting some reviews which will help me with the characters in my new story.
1. Default Chapter

I was not really drawn to him, as he would later sing in his melancholy couplets. That I met him when I did was of my own doing.  
  
The leaves were changing color and everyone was out picking, hunting, harvesting anything that could be harvested in preparation for winter. Housework was commonly neglected and long shreds of spider webs drooped from our ceiling beams. "You'll hang yourself on one of those," grandmother would say plucking each as she found it.  
  
Tired of being around people, especially my cloyingly cheerful friends, I felt a tickle of irritation spreading from my groin to my chest each time a spontaneous outburst of laughter shook the heavy air around. That day, I told my mother I was going by the Eye Lake, the closest of the seven Rhodope lakes to gather herbs. If she disapproved of my going off in the middle of the great harvest she did not say anything. Vexation did not hide well in me.  
  
The familiar climb to the lake slowed my thoughts and I relaxed my jaw. Soon the sounds of the forest disappeared into a strange song coming from the nearest lakeshore. I reached the small clearing atop the peak and saw him. He was so concentrated and seamless, it seemed he was teasing not the lyre itself but the air around it. The song was something plaintive about love, the words themselves trite, but all the forest, every creature inside listened to him in silence. As for me, every string felt as if it were attached to my flesh and, when plucked, tore it painfully apart. My stomach turned over. The song ended, he got up and I noticed he was a young man, thin, and hunched over ever so slightly. He was rather mousy looking.  
  
"You are Orpheus," I said.  
  
"That I be." He tried to hide the smile, which gushed under his face. "You know me?"  
  
"We have all heard of the man who charms beast and nature alike with his songs here. I am Eyridice from the town of Erikstes. Pray stay the night with us. We are in the middle of a harvest and your songs would be a welcome respite from the hard toil of the season."  
  
Without a moment's thought he accepted my invitation, gave a belabored speech about his gratitude, and followed me down the mountain and into the town.  
  
The arrival of so celebrated a song master interrupted the harvest, for everyone wanted to be close to Orpheus, hear Orpheus sing, watch Orpheus relieve himself in the nearby groves. And the bard reveled in the town's attention. His ballads became more wistful and tormented with each passing day. He sighed and his breath turned into song upon leaving his lips. Soon melancholy fell upon Erikstes like fog. The young brooded on the streets, shoulders folded in. Lovers readily accused one another of wrongdoing. The elders sang shakily of loss and despair.  
  
When the moon grew from a sickle to a cat eye, Orpheus announced his decision to leave the town on the following day before the Eriksteans gathered in the center square. He was to head for the sacred Kogaionon Mountains through the city of Apros. Women who had received his attention, and they were not few, wept openly. I noticed my sister's eyes darkening and suddenly realized she was grown up.  
  
"You could not have fallen for his act," I smiled.  
  
Her eyes narrowed in my direction.  
  
"Don't be a hypocrite. I have seen you listen to Orpheus's songs gaping- mouthed yourself. You are only happy because once he leaves people will be asking your stories again. Then you can play reluctant and let them praise you until their voices run off before you tell a story."  
  
I shook her criticism off.  
  
"That his songs hold a sway over people, I cannot dispute. That so many women have caused him grief is hard to believe. Look around you." I swept the air around with my hand.  
  
"All those are but girls caught up in the crowd's emotions and emotion is too fleeting to be love."  
  
"And you think you are different? You have witnessed nothing but his misery. You cannot base a complex feeling on a single trait. And if he is naught but misery..."  
  
As soon as I said that, I realized how condescending I sounded.  
  
"Better to live with misery than with your constant anger."  
  
Slowly, she let herself smile and we broke into a laugh.  
  
"I am angry because you are always an irritation."  
  
In truth, I was not certain I was perpetually annoyed. Or at whom. I knew I resented my friends for being constantly happy despite the hard life in the mountains. I certainly resented the townspeople for not abandoning this struggling, inconsequential settlement. I resented the heroes whose deeds I extolled in my stories for living the adventures I was meant to live. And I resented the Gods for giving me this dark, irritable mind and abandoning me in such place.  
  
"I may not be an irritation for long now," Bendidora said, growing serious again.  
  
Shading my eyes from the sun with my hand, I tilted my head in a question.  
  
"I cannot tell you now but I promise you will be the first to hear tomorrow," she said.  
  
I did not pursue an answer. Bendidora, gift of Bendis, was as clandestine as the moon Goddess after whom she was named. If she said tomorrow, there was no way I could find out today.  
  
My father found her wandering empty-eyed near the city walls the next morning. She could not say a word, nor did she speak since. Instead she shook her head from time to time and hummed something happily to herself. The priest of Bendis said the Goddess has taken her gift back because we had not performed the necessary sacrifices after the great harvest but did not say what we had to sacrifice. So I helped my father slay our entire herd over the altar of Bendis while my mother poured ceremonial libations from gold rhytons over the smoldering animal flesh. We offered so many sheep and cattle that scavengers fed upon the remains for an entire moon.  
  
But the apocryphal prophesy of the priest was to come true as Bendidora died soon after. After she was buried we saw that we had nothing left but our winter reserves and the sympathy of Eriksteans. I thought this a suitable time to announce my decision to leave the city. I wanted to go after Orpheus. A neighbor girl had disappeared in the same evening as my sister and was never found. The bard had left the following morning. "One is Gods' doing, two – a coincidence, three is a pattern," I remembered my grandmother's words. Inured to death, the townspeople paid no heed to those events, but I needed to know what had happened to my sister. My parents had not the strength nor will to protest. For the last two moons their vitality had drained away as if it was their blood that had flowed from the slit throats of our cattle.  
  
I packed a spare set of hardy clothing. My mother and grandmother competently rubbed salt into a large amount of our stored meat, expertly pressed it into a rather small and surprisingly heavy bag (and would I please not travel the forests at night, especially in a snowstorm, and might I bother to talk reverently to my elders, and how could I be doing this to them after all they have gone through this year). I exhaled with relief when I threw the two bags over my shoulders and stepped out of the city walls and into the forest, the chorus of my family's goodbyes chanting in the distance. 


	2. Chapter 2

Luckily, the day I had chosen for my departure was cool and sunny. The crisp air was starting to smell of snow and snow made me happy. I had but a day's walk to the city of Apros located in the central lap of the Rhodope Mountains but I had more than halved the distance by noon. In the afternoon I slowed down, enjoying the feel of pines brushing against my outstretched hand. Even though I wasn't hungry I took a strip of meat out of my bag and thoughtfully chewed upon it for some time. The salt which seeped into my mouth made me thirsty and I stopped by the river whose bed had carved my path for a drink. Untying the pigskin laces I took my shoes off and cautiously dipped my feet into the biting water. A corpse laid just a few paces downstream, long hair billowing in the water. More startled than fearful, with eyes fixed on the body and brain pulsating furiously, I patted the bank around for my shoes, grabbed them and backed away.  
  
I ran the length of four stadia through the forest before I stopped; my feet now dry and scratched. I set my back against a flat rock with my chest heaving and quickly put on my shoes. Under me, Apros was visible though still faded out in the distance. Shepherds and goatherds headed up for the last remaining patches of grass greeted me by and I felt safe enough to slow my pace and brush off the twigs and pines from my back. My face was probably feverish as I felt cheeks burning and eyes dry but the physical strain had organized my thoughts. Rhodope Thracians were dark-haired and green-eyed, precious few had the pale hair I had seen waving in the water...and the icy water was known to preserve fruits and meat without a trace of decay for entire seasons. Even though I had not seen her face, I knew the dead girl was the neighbor whose disappearance had been only mourned by her parents.  
  
The sun was just retiring for the day when I walked through the fortified walls of Apros. The city was larger and far richer than my hometown and, consequently, the target of many failed invasions both foreign and neighborly. I walked to the gate of a large and well-kept estate and offered my stories in exchange for a shelter and some dinner. I was quietly ushered into a crowded dining hall where the floors were slick with wine and littered with what I took to be food. The wine was decanted with Bacchic flourish and soon my gregarious neighbors on the small table I was seated became rather animated. I used the opportunity to guide the conversation to Orpheus and his stay in the city.  
  
"Orpheus, a good man. A good, good man," the greasy-haired man on my left assured me. "Very talented."  
  
"Indeed," I said. "I have walked from far away to hear Orpheus sing. I learned he was headed to Apros and came in search of him."  
  
"Very sad his songs." "Oi, you're a woman," the man across the table shouted. I held my breath for his stank of fermented alcohol and rotting food most of which was deposited between his teeth. "Tell me why you all hate Orpheus."  
  
"I hate him not. I have come a long way to hear his songs." My protest went unheeded since he was already busy accusing the servants of offering him watered down wine.  
  
"Do you..." I tapped my neighbor on the shoulder. "Do you know where Orpheus was headed?"  
  
"Beos. A small town between Rhodope and Kogaionon. Good man, Orpheus. Very talented. No, Orpheus. I was talking about Orpheus," He shouted in the direction of the woman who had opined that the bard presently entertaining the family of the house was as melodious as the rotting bowels of a dead bitch.  
  
I turned to my other tablemate.  
  
"Has it been long since he left?"  
  
"Orpheus? It has been but half a moon. He stayed in Apros for a whole moon, entertaining our ruler Zalmoxis and his guests. I heard he kept one of Zalmoxis's long-limbed daughters very entertained in fact." He laughed at his own joke and threw a chicken bone at the dog which was sniffing for scraps nearby.  
  
As Beos was much farther away, I left with a group of merchants heading for a large city somewhere beyond Kogaionon. Snow covered the entire mountain and I cursed it rhythmically as I waded, step, after step, after burdensome step. After many days traveling through the hushed, luscious pine forests, we came by a small settlement of no more than a dozen black cottages. As we approached we heard a wailing and saw an elderly woman, not more than forty years of age tearing her clothes and beating her chest in the familiar custom of mourning. The scowling people gathered around told us a hunter had just found the body of her daughter frozen black in the snow. Used to the disinterested weeping of professional mourners, I was strangely irritated by the wretched undulation in the woman's voice. I wanted to silence her in a violent way, shake her, slap her... I wanted to run away from the village. Instead, I walked to the body and kneeled for a better look. Even the sepulchral shroud of the falling snow could not hide the deep grooves on the body from which her blood had seeped out. Her hair was tangled, frozen to her head, striped black in blood and white with ice. I imagined the girl's last thoughts, her pleading, bargaining with the killer, her hot tears burning her freezing face... Or did she submit to her circumstance, allowing death in as we Thracians were taught to but rarely did – in resigned acceptance of Fate?  
  
We fled the onerous atmosphere of the village very early the following morning and walked quietly on. Over time we passed a number of small communities, stayed the night after replenishing our food and drink supplies, and left. When we all grew weary of conversation I told stories of gods, and titans, and heroes. Once we reached Beos, I thanked the merchants for their protection and friendship and we exchanged warm farewells for they had grown as accustomed to my stories as I had to their company.  
  
The city appeared to be larger than I was told it would be. Enjoying the sight of the myriad people strolling by, busy in conversation, I sat on a small bench by the city wall and drank the last of my wine. Once I warmed up, I got up, brushed off some of the dust deposited by travel and smoothed my clothes somewhat. Despite that, I must have looked a mess judging by the disdainful looks of sympathy in the faces of the servants of the estate where I spent the night. Since I had arrived around midday I was not invited to eat in the hall but instead shown to the kitchen and allowed to eat as much as I deemed necessary.  
  
As busy as the servants were in preparing the dinner feast, their mouths kept busier chatting about the famed Orpheus, who was invited to the feast with his Beotian host, some influential member of the ruling family. I asked for a bucket of water to clean my face and hands and changed into my clean clothes but mentally unprepared to confront Orpheus that evening, I stayed in the kitchen for dinner, entertaining the cooks with the story about the Thracian king Tereus who raped his wife Procne's sister and cut out her tongue. Philomena, the sister wove a tapestry of her woes and showed it to Procne and the two swore revenge. When I reached the part where the sisters cook and serve Procne and Tereus's son to the king, the servants gasped and involuntarily glanced at the two boars slowly roasting in the fire. Basking in their attention I continued with the bloody story of Medea and the tragedy of Tantalus both of whom had killed and cooked their own sons. I finished off with the story of Kronos swallowing his children to prevent them from taking over his throne. Morbid stories always commanded more attention.  
  
While being shown to my room, I passed by the dining hall, which was uncharacteristically quiet save for the mournful voices of Orpheus and his lyre:  
  
"I dreamt I walked a dream — a dark, austere forest. I ran more than walked, flew more than ran, the road coiled beneath me – A fat white snake preparing to spring and drag me down. I looked up in the shadowy branches (for the trees were tall, higher than I could fly) And saw you beckoning. The gray cloak of death I had seen you wearing last, Had slipped from your pearlescent body and lay discarded on the road. The snarl of death had melted in a reassuring smile And you were placidly sipping on ambrosia – the drink that gives the Gods Their ever-lasting immortality. I flew up to the shadowy branches (for you drew me up higher than I thought I could fly). And reached for the drink which you had proffered – the ambrosia Which gave you your ever-lasting immortality. But fell through the shadowy branches, down towards the winding road Which opened its maw, hungrily, to receive me, And I woke up in tears."  
  
The song rang in my ears throughout the night.  
  
I had not thought of what I was to do once I found Orpheus. I could certainly not approach and question him about three dead girls. For a while I bid my time and followed him around, one of many who did. For days he did nothing but stroll around the city sighing, and singing, and glancing at the beautiful women with sad limpid eyes.  
  
At the end of winter Orpheus announced he was heading for the temple of Bacchus located in the lap of the Kogaionon Mountains for the Spring Bacchanalia, which drew hundreds of merry, rowdy worshippers. He left the next morning, as did I. 


	3. Chapter 3

And a beautiful morning it was. The sunrays stalked the last patches of mud drying them right before my feet. I could just see the bard's white peplum gleaming between the emerald oak branches. I swerved off the road to relieve myself as all the wine consumed in Beos was making me quite restless. I took a little long so I was surprised to see white fabric disappearing behind the trees ahead when I got back on the path. I continued down until the road broadened to a small expanse, surprisingly occupied by Orpheus and a young girl whom I had seen around Beos. Hidden behind the trees, I could not hear what they were discussing but saw her pick a small, seemingly heavy bag and follow him along.  
  
And so they walked until the sun dove behind the distant blue peaks at which time they left the road in search of a place to stay the night. Myself, I chose a place not too far from them hidden in the shrubs, deposited my bags, and crept back until I found a suitable vantage point. I could see Orpheus pick up his lyre and begin a song. The girl was lying on her side with head propped up on her left hand, her face expressionless in its concentration. When he finished the song, he placed the lyre carefully on the rock beside him walked to the girl and knelt beside her. She smiled at him; he smiled back, covered her face with his right hand, and slit her throat with the left.  
  
He had not done it well because she thrashed about for some time, her blood flowing black in the moonlight, while he slashed indiscriminately trying to make her still. Finally succeeding, he walked back to his lyre and picked it up and sang of the story of Bendis who died and was reborn as a goddess and a consort to the Horseman God – a half-forgotten ceremonial song intended to transform death into apotheosis. When the song ended, he propped his head on a bag and fell asleep.  
  
I looked down at my body hunched in the shrubbery, shivering in the cold, unable to look away from the two listless bodies in front. I tried to will it to crawl quietly back to the place I had chosen for sleep, take the bags, and run back home, but it wouldn't. I fell into a dreamless sleep from which I awoke when the first rays of the morning sun tickled my eyes. For a while I lay still, drawing small staccato breaths, trying to recognize the strange feeling in my stomach. Then I remembered last night's events and turned around to inspect Orpheus's camp.  
  
The bard must have been worn out by the previous evening's effort for he did not wake until the sun was high in its day path. I had crept back and returned with my bags and was now curious to see what he would do. When his eyes opened, his head lifted up and turned to look at the girl and then, disappointed, fell back beside his body. With an irritated sigh, he got up and knelt beside the body, inspecting it for the longest time. I knew I should have eaten the moment my stomach growled its morning protest and Orpheus looked up from the body snapping his head up like a wolf whose meal had been interrupted. I was certain he had heard something but he calmly returned to his unceremonious inspection for a while before picking up his lyre and bag and walking off in direction of the road.  
  
I sat back in the shrubs with a soft thud. Now that I knew with certainty what had happened to the girls, I needed to walk back to Beos and advise its citizens. I knew Orpheus would not quit until one of his victims emerged a Goddess and, in turn, bestowed onto him the divinity he thought he deserved. I also knew that would not happen. Fate evaded those who tried to force her hand. For this same reason, I had to follow Orpheus and see the progress of his obsession with immortality. His was a more interesting story than any I had told. Gruesome and unusual, maybe a little unbelievable, this was a story I could sing into a myth. I could not go back home yet.  
  
We stopped for a few days in Sevtopolis, a small but rather rich city about a dozen settlements away from the temple of Bacchus. Orpheus stayed at the palace of Seuthes the Seventh whose forefathers had built and ruled the city. I slept at one of the smaller estates close by. The day after we arrived, he was again determinedly prowling the streets beckoning the attention of citizens and non-citizens alike. In the afternoon he stopped in the center square, as he often did, and a lull swayed the crowd. He plucked at his lyre, tilted his head, and sighed. Then, I heard my name drip from his lips, sound by sound, and flinched mid-yawn. In disbelief, I listened to him sing about how he met and courted me, about our marriage and my death, and about my waiting for him in the shadows of the underworld. Clever. Though I could see him sighing sweetly in the middle of the crowd, I knew that if I turned around he would be there, knife in hand, beaming at me. I wondered just how long he had known I was there.  
  
But I followed him on in a sort of a desperate curiosity. His killings became more skillful as time progressed. Soon he was able to slit his victims' throats as expertly as I had once sacrificed my family's cattle at the altar of Bendis. Loath as I am to admit, sometimes I felt like an honorary spectator of his twisted new mythos. Few times I caught myself being noticeably careless in my stalking but he never showed any acknowledgement of my presence. Instead, his actions became more automatic, calcifying into a dispassionate ritual. 


	4. Chapter 4

Eumenes was the last Kogaiononian city on the way to the temple. I now knew that Orpheus never killed anyone inside a town he was visiting, opting instead to lure girls into leaving with him. We were greeted by a miserable weather and I decided I did not feel like following the bard around the city. Instead I stayed in for days and often entertained the daughter of my host with the stories of the Trojan War. The daughter, Erichtea, was a young thing, barely fifteen years of age and of a rather giggly nature. In the absence of her adoring parents, she clung to me in the most annoying way, repeatedly questioning me about my travels and all the marvelous (so she thought) sights I had witnessed. She would try to convince me to go follow Orpheus around with her and would always be disappointed upon my refusal to leave the warm house and follow the man. Irked as I was by her friendship and the close-knit atmosphere in the estate, I was disappointed when I heard Orpheus had announced (with great pomp, as usual) his imminent departure.  
  
Why he chose Erichtea this time I was not sure. Maybe it was intended to show me that he was as tired of the stalking as I was. Naturally, he knew where I was staying and who my hosts were. And the stupid girl bought his entire routine. I watched her follow him and watched him pretend to be surprised when she tapped his shoulder. He was never surprised. I watched him charm her misgivings away and lead her off the road when the stars woke up at dusk. I watched the girl whose parents had given me shelter and food, the girl who had laughed and gasped at my words bleed away in the moonlight like many before her and lost myself in self-contempt. In a strange way, I told myself, I had also been enchanted by the insane little man's songs. No. That was too ready an excuse. In fact, I had been fascinated with his quest to the point of criminal apathy. We were grasping at the same thing, Orpheus and I. We both wanted immortality, physical for him, lyrical for me.  
  
He sat on a nearby boulder and picked his lyre just as I walked out of the thicket, certain he could see the embers burning through the skin of my ears.  
  
"Hello, dear," I said with irony, the treble of my voice betraying the fear and anger my haughty, stilted stride intended to conceal.  
  
A feral smile blossomed white on his shadowed face and he sang out.  
  
"Vicious Aphrodite bit into me with venomous teeth, I feel the poison blistering my veins, I could not love Eurydice and yet I burn with longing..."  
  
As I said, trite.  
  
Almost imperceptibly, without breaking the song, he glanced at his knife lying two paces from the boulder on which he sat. My stomach tightened and I could swear I vomited a burst of energy, which hissed through the snow- brushed leaves and evaporated, leaving the night darker than before.  
  
"She," I waived my hand at something I hoped was Erichtea's direction and kicked the knife, an important part of his ritual, far from the camp, "will not arise a Goddess, none of them will. She will stiffen, then soften, then rot. "  
  
I had hoped that the images of decay would damage the marble perfection of his idealized victims and indulge him in conversation, but he sang on of the cruelty of love and of his anguish.  
  
"It may be that this is not their failing," I popped an eyebrow skywards in mock-consideration. "The girls', I mean. It may be that you were not fated to become a god, Orpheus."  
  
"I rather think we both were," he said, "Fated. You and I. Both resentful of our surroundings and insanely in love with ourselves, unable to cope with our fear of death, for death is the end of the me, despite what they say about the land of the dead, and we just cannot deal with that. In fact, no hero has ever been able to. That is the reason for all their heroics. "  
  
"In honest, I am surprised at your self-awareness." I said.  
  
"Insight often comes when one is gazing at death. All those girls. It started in your town, I hope you realize. I was struck by the dichotomy between the dejected atmosphere and hard life of Erikstes and all the jubilant people inhabiting the place. Oh, how quickly their delusions of happiness dissipated once a foreign element made its way into their world and introduced new emotions and aspirations. I'd wager they snapped back to happy once I left?"  
  
I nodded.  
  
"See? Happiness over awareness. I cannot live like that, neither can you, I assume. Otherwise you would not have followed me."  
  
"I followed you in need of a story."  
  
"Well, I hope you liked it. And now, I am going to have to kill you."  
  
And he lunged at my throat barehanded. I tried to fend him off but he was surprisingly strong for such a scrawny thing. His hands squeezing my throat, I was still fighting him when I lost consciousness.  
  
I came to only to hear Orpheus scrambling for his knife in the thick vegetation about. I got up, grabbing a heavy, fire-blackened branch, and swung it at his head. He fell, dead or unconscious, I did not care. I dug out a grave for Erichtea, lugged the body in, and covered it. Then I left.  
  
Apparently, he survived. And to others I was a presumably a Goddess come back from the land of the dead. However, because of some transgression of his, I had been conveniently sent back to the shadows where I waited for Orpheus' ascension to Mount Olympus to join him. People will believe anything. From what I could understand, convinced himself or having convinced others that he had achieved his immortality, he did not kill anyone else, devoting himself (quite successfully) to the pursuit of poetic renown. I went back home to take care of my aged parents and continued telling my stories. Orpheus' was the only story I would not tell, at least not until I felt the breath of Thanatos, the God of Death on my collarbone. Who would believe me anyway? There was no magic, no gods, no true love in it. Just two arrogant youths and a lot of death. 


End file.
